I love panoramas
From mountain ranges to Mediterranean coasts, certain places offer their visitors privileged points of view, which can provoke the feeling of dominating the world, possessing it, even dissolving it.
The word “panorama” was first used in England in 1787. It referred to a circular structure that placed spectators in the centre, where they could discover a landscape or a historical scene. Reproduced in an illusionary manner, it unfolded 360° around them. The term later resurfaced in France, in 1830, where it was simply an expression for sweeping landscapes, or expansive views. Later, its meaning rebounded encompassing both the succession of images perceived by the mind as a complete vision and the almost exhaustive study of a subject…
These different meanings convey the very essence of the panoramic phenomenon: the central role of perspective, a certain appropriation of the world that follows, the feeling of dominating a situation simply due to having a wide and complete view… by creating an illusion of reality that even competes with it. Indeed, the different forms of panoramas pose the question of the construction of perspective.
The exhibition I Love Panoramas, fruit of a close collaboration between the Musées d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève, Geneva and the Mucem in Marseille, seeks to demonstrate how the notion of the panorama surpasses typical categories of representation (fine arts, contemporary art, photography, cinema, industry, amateur practices…). Stemming from scientific and military logic prior to being appropriated by the society of the spectacle, the panoramic experience poses the question of our relationship to the world or to the landscape, mastered or unknown, to mass tourism, to the consumption of formatted points of view, as a source of entertainment.
From the first drawing of a panorama filed by the American inventor Robert Fulton at the Institut National de la Propriété Intellectuelle in Paris, in 1799, to 360° room for all colours, by the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, created in 2002, this exhibition offers a wide chronological range. In bringing together works by artists such as Jeff Wall, Peter Greenaway, David Hockney, Vincent Van Gogh, Gustave Courbet, Gerhard Richter, Jan Dibbets, François Morellet, and Ellsworth Kelly, it highlights the diversity of the artistic proposals influenced or marked by the notion of the panorama.
From photographic surveys of the Alps to those of battlefields by way of wallpapers, postcards and films, records, mediums and worlds mix and renew the way we look at the world and the role of the viewer.
Temporary exhibition, organised jointly by the Mucem and the Musées d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva.
Commissariat : Jean-Roch Bouiller, Chief Curator, Head of Contemporary Art at the Mucem, and Laurence Madeline, Chief Curator, Head of Fine Arts at the Musées d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva
Scenography: Adrien Rovero Studio
Graphic art: Camille Sauthier, Atelier Valenthier
From mountain ranges to Mediterranean coasts, certain places offer their visitors privileged points of view, which can provoke the feeling of dominating the world, possessing it, even dissolving it.
The word “panorama” was first used in England in 1787. It referred to a circular structure that placed spectators in the centre, where they could discover a landscape or a historical scene. Reproduced in an illusionary manner, it unfolded 360° around them. The term later resurfaced in France, in 1830, where it was simply an expression for sweeping landscapes, or expansive views. Later, its meaning rebounded encompassing both the succession of images perceived by the mind as a complete vision and the almost exhaustive study of a subject…
These different meanings convey the very essence of the panoramic phenomenon: the central role of perspective, a certain appropriation of the world that follows, the feeling of dominating a situation simply due to having a wide and complete view… by creating an illusion of reality that even competes with it. Indeed, the different forms of panoramas pose the question of the construction of perspective.
The exhibition I Love Panoramas, fruit of a close collaboration between the Musées d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève, Geneva and the Mucem in Marseille, seeks to demonstrate how the notion of the panorama surpasses typical categories of representation (fine arts, contemporary art, photography, cinema, industry, amateur practices…). Stemming from scientific and military logic prior to being appropriated by the society of the spectacle, the panoramic experience poses the question of our relationship to the world or to the landscape, mastered or unknown, to mass tourism, to the consumption of formatted points of view, as a source of entertainment.
From the first drawing of a panorama filed by the American inventor Robert Fulton at the Institut National de la Propriété Intellectuelle in Paris, in 1799, to 360° room for all colours, by the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, created in 2002, this exhibition offers a wide chronological range. In bringing together works by artists such as Jeff Wall, Peter Greenaway, David Hockney, Vincent Van Gogh, Gustave Courbet, Gerhard Richter, Jan Dibbets, François Morellet, and Ellsworth Kelly, it highlights the diversity of the artistic proposals influenced or marked by the notion of the panorama.
From photographic surveys of the Alps to those of battlefields by way of wallpapers, postcards and films, records, mediums and worlds mix and renew the way we look at the world and the role of the viewer.
Temporary exhibition, organised jointly by the Mucem and the Musées d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva.
Commissariat : Jean-Roch Bouiller, Chief Curator, Head of Contemporary Art at the Mucem, and Laurence Madeline, Chief Curator, Head of Fine Arts at the Musées d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva
Scenography: Adrien Rovero Studio
Graphic art: Camille Sauthier, Atelier Valenthier